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Introduction

Criminal informants provide important information to the justice system, but they also pose serious risks. We hope this website will help attorneys, journalists, advocates, and families to better understand this vital area of public policy.

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WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

Criminal informants are famously unreliable. Jailhouse snitch testimony often leads to wrongful conviction. Over 45 percent of all innocent people exonerated from death sentences were wrongfully convicted based on the testimony of a lying criminal informant. This makes snitches the leading cause of wrongful conviction in U.S. capital cases.

YOUNG INFORMANTS

Police sometimes use children as young as 14 as informants. These children may be exposed to drugs, violence, and other criminal activities as they work to get information for their handlers. Some have been killed. California and New Jersey have laws restricting the practice: in other states police have discretion to use juvenile informants.

INFORMANT CRIMES

Some informants are serious criminals who receive leniency for their own crimes. The FBI has been known to use murderers as informants. Many jurisdictions permit drug dealers to continue selling drugs in exchange for cooperation. In 2011, the crimes committed by FBI informants alone totaled over 5,600.

URBAN COMMUNITIES PAY THE PRICE

Informants are a staple of drug enforcement. This means that where drug enforcement is heaviest, informant activity is also heaviest. Because drug arrests occur disproportionately in low-income African American neighborhoods, those residents must live with the crime, violence, and distrust that go with criminal informant use.

REFORM

Many states are rethinking their criminal informant policies. Some have passed laws restricting the use of jailhouse snitch witnesses. Some have created new rules for disclosure and accountability. The U.S. Congress is considering a number of reforms that would improve transparency and safety. In the future, the laws governing criminal informants will likely look very different than they do today.

Resources

Recent Blog Posts

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Monday, October 12, 2009

"Snitch and you're a dead man"

Journalism professor and author John Fountain weighs in on the "stop snitching" phenomenon in the Chicago Tribune. He describes urban neighborhoods permeated with fear and insecurity, and takes issue with criticism of residents who are unwilling to talk to police. He writes:

In my experience growing up in an impoverished Chicago community like those under siege, it boils down to an issue of trust. And many who live in the city's most murderous neighborhoods -- who have also witnessed police and political corruption and a trail of broken promises -- simply don't trust the authorities enough to come forward. By doing so, they could be laying their lives on the line. It isn't that people don't want to tell. They do. And it isn't that they aren't concerned about their neighborhoods. They are. But to come forward is to risk everything, even in a world where "safety" is always relative.

Fountain's piece highlights a central reason that the public debate over criminal justice is so fractured: people and groups have radically different experiences and expectations. In neighborhoods where police are perceived as responsive, where people do not worry constantly about their personal security, where the legal system seems fair and effective, it makes eminent sense to talk to police. In neighborhoods where none of this is true, it might make sense not to. Such differences in perception show up quite publicly in debates over "stop snitching," but they quietly affect all aspects of the criminal process, from the way people relate to defense lawyers to the kinds of punishment people consider to be fair. In my view, this is one of the reasons that the "stop snitching" debate is valuable: it encourages the public exposure of some very different legal realities.